Rigid case or bust for backpack pencils.

Colored pencils break in a backpack because they jostle around and take lateral hits, so the answer is a rigid case that keeps them from moving — not a soft pouch.

The breakage isn’t usually from dropping the bag. It’s from the pencils smacking into each other and the sides of your bag every time you walk. Soft pouches and fabric pencil rolls let that happen constantly. They cushion the blow a little, but they don’t stop the momentum.

Get a hard case — an aluminum or plastic pencil box, a cigar box, even a sturdy plastic pencil case from the office aisle. The key is that it’s rigid and snug enough that the pencils don’t slide around much. If there’s empty space, stuff a cloth or piece of foam in there to keep them from shifting.

Point them in the same direction too. If you carry them point-down, the tips get crushed by the weight of the whole pencil pressing into them when the case hits the ground. A little padding at the bottom fixes that.

Cheap soft cases are where pencils go to